HTC outselling Oculus 2-to-1.
PC VR at around half a million total sales

One important caveat is that some people put the number of VR headsets in the hands of the press or developers at about 200k, and those are included in the 500k number, so the sell through to clients might be smaller.

I just wanted to say a huge thank you to @Nut for this post. THANK YOU!

I’ve had the Vive since May and, while I’ve always loved it, I wasn’t ever too impressed with the FOV and overall sharpness or resolution that was possible. Well, I had never bothered to actually measure my IPD or adjust the horizontal/vertical positioning like you describe.

But after seeing your post, I finally made those adjustments yesterday, plus I removed the foam and inverted it so it rests lower on my face and closer to my eyes… and the overall improvement in clarity and field of view is amazing!

So here’s what I do with my Vive that doesn’t get enough word of mouth around here. Virtual Desktop!

It’s the closest thing to a killer app I’ve found for gaming. If you’re only enjoying VR-enabled games and applications with your VR goggles then you are seriously missing out.

It’s true that most AAA games don’t work smoothly in Virtual Desktop. Frame rate stutter and screen flicker will ruin games like Dark Souls III or Watch Dogs 2. But depending on the capabilities of your CPU/video card, you can enjoy some astonishing results with less-demanding indie fare. Anything that can tolerate being rendered twice across two monitors.

By default, all Steam games will launch into a Game Theater in Virtual Desktop. This is a hopelessly lame screen setup with very limited, barebones settings. So the first thing you need to do with any game you want to try in Virtual Desktop is go to your Game Properties and uncheck the box marked “Use Desktop Game Theatre while Steam VR is active.” Now when you launch your game in Virtual Desktop, it’ll stay in Virtual Desktop.

The beauty of Virtual Desktop is that you can adjust the Screen Size and Distance sliders from an IMAX-sized screen smack up against your nose to a little TV screen floating way off in the distance… or anything in between.

So your screen can be flat and huge and maybe that floats your boat, but check that little box next to Curved and the magic really starts happening. Now you can wrap the giant screen around your field of vision. My favorite setting for loads of titles is to have the Distance slider almost as far out as possible while the Size setting makes the edges of the screen just out of sight at the top/bottom of the image and the left/right wraps around your natural field of vision.

Try American Truck Simulator where you have to swivel your head naturally to the left to look out your driver’s side window and to your right to look out the passenger side window. And the open road fills your entire windshield. Stunning!

I recently played through Inside in its entirety (GAWD, such a great game!) in this giant-curved-screen format and it was amazing. And now that Nut helped me improve the overall resolution and sharpness of the entire image, I want to play through it again.

Hyper Light Drifter, The Flame in the Flood, Steamworld Heist, No Man’s Sky, Owlboy, Abzu, The Witness (WOW!), Salt & Sanctuary, these games are given a whole new sense of scale and visual presentation and giant-screen immersiveness. It even works with a handful of AAA games like Doom.

Also worth trying, check the box that says Floating so the screen gets off the horizontal plane. Recline back in your gaming chair and rest your head and let the huge game float above you at a 45 degree angle. Lie down in a beanbag chair and play I Am Setsuna as if it’s projected on the ceiling.

In conclusion, THANK YOU, NUT! And also, if you’re only playing VR games with your VR goggles, then do yourself a favor and start indie-gaming in Virtual Desktop pronto!

Try American Truck Simulator where you have to swivel your head naturally to the left to look out your driver’s side window and to your right to look out the passenger side window. And the open road fills your entire windshield. Stunning!

But doesn’t this game have proper VR support though? Euro Truck 2 does, at least in-game.

I don’t believe that’s been added yet but I only dabble with the game now and then. Any time I can’t decide if I want to listen to music or play a game, I hop in the big rig and do both at the same time.

It definitely has Oculus support, and it’s great (frame rate issues aside, but if you have a Pascal card you should be fine). You have to use the -oculus launch parameter. Don’t know about Vive, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work.

On Virtual Desktop, have you (or anyone else) figured out how to do PiP with it? I’d love to have my second monitor displayed in the corner of my headset while playing ED or ATS. I’ve read some things online suggesting Virtual Desktop could do that, but I haven’t worked out how.

Much as I love the increased sharpness and field of vision that comes with removing the foam, I do not love the scratchy velcro on my cheeks or heavy goggles weighing down on my sinuses. So I found this vid and ordered a pair of the 6mm foam replacement covers. I’ll let y’all know if they’re worth a damn.

I’d actually ordered a set of the VRCovers already. They FEEL better than the stock ones, but they are a bit thicker. I stopped using them, unfortunately, because they were too big to fit my glasses into.

Sounds like you probably went for the cushier 14mm option? I’m lucky I don’t wear glasses so I ordered the 6mm varietal.

Hopefully we’ll get a good replacement for the head straps too. I finally detached the cable cover last night and unplugged the audio cable I wasn’t using. So funny that there’s a little USB port in there.

Someday we’re gonna look back at these geeky, clunky contraptions and laugh.

Got my 3d printed inserts installed into my Vive with prescription lenses. It’s nice being able to see without the discomfort of wearing glasses (or the fear of scratching the Vive lenses).

Also moved my Vive playscape to the other side of the family room, after being struck by the epiphany that I didn’t need to be near the TV (and in fact realizing I don’t want to be near the TV, 'cause that’s an expensive accident waiting to happen).

In so doing, I expanded my placspace from about 2.5m square to 3.5m square. It made me feel like this:

Had a fair bit of fun with Diner Duo.This basic concept is pretty cool as a way make VR involve friends/family via local coop (one person on the screen with an Xbox controller taking orders – the other in the Vive cooking burgers). Is there anything else similar?

Had a fair bit of fun with Diner Duo.This basic concept is pretty cool as a way make VR involve friends/family via local coop (one person on the screen with an Xbox controller taking orders – the other in the Vive cooking burgers). Is there anything else similar?

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is an obvious one. The second person reads a bomb manual and instructs the person in VR to defuse the bomb they can see. Apart from that there are a bunch of hide and seek games like Mass Exodus.

Sony announced and is rolling out a pair of new $500 bundles. One with PS VR Worlds, camera, and Move controllers that is the launch bundle in all but name, and a second replacing VR Worlds with Until Dawn: Rush of Blood. Assuming this will lead to more VR units available in stores. Gamestop.com currently has both in stock.

Having to disconnect the PSVR and shift HDMI cords around to use the PS4 to play a modern HDR game is a huge design flaw. It bugs me so much I’m thinking of dumping my PSVR.

I like VR, and want to support the tech, but $80 for simplistic games like Eve and Battlezone is pretty silly. I do find horror games absolutely terrifying in VR though - really freaky - wouldn’t be surprised if someone had a heart attack playing Resident Evil 7. I wish it was confirmed that Elite was definitely going to support PSVR when it comes out later this year, as that alone might warrant retaining it - not sure if there’s anything else coming out that I care about. I should finally boot up the Batman game.

I finally I decided to order a Vive, now that I have a better GPU and (I think) a room large enough to work with it. Google Earth VR is what I’m most excited about, but what else should I make sure to check out?

I have an Oculus and am unsure what’s exclusive to one or the other, but … probably Tilt Brush and Job Sim get recommended frequently for Vive (after any bundled demo stuff), though I haven’t played either.

The best VR game in my experience is Superhot. Though short, it works as a great concept/game that is totally elevated by the addition of the touch controls. And it’s finished, not early access. :)

Obduction is on my wait list, since they’re adding touch support (even though it may not add too much to the experience). Raw Data seems popular, but it’s early access. Budget Cuts I think may be great, but it’s not out yet. Resident Evil 7 VR looks awesome but Sony have 1 years VR exclusivity so we won’t see it in VR until 2018. :P

Many games you’ll find cool for 15 minutes thanks to the VR aspect, then kind of tire of because they’re not really that great as games, or are glorified tech demos. Still, there’s a lot worth checking out: I Expect You To Die, Arizona Sunshine, Onward, Space Pirate Trainer, QuiVr, Fantastic Contraption, Serious Sam VR. Heaps more that I’m sure others can mention.

Check out some VR movies. Oculus Story Studio makes some great VR shorts, maybe Vive has something similar? For …ahem… other content, Simple VR Video Player is the best. Virtual Desktop is a handy tool as well.

The main event though is the proper games that are transformed by sticking on a VR headset: Elite Dangerous, Dirt Rally, Project Cars, Assetto Corsa, DCS World, Minecraft. Then there’s something like Subnautica which is going to be amazing if it ever releases with decent performance…